Verus
A famous, self-proclaimed Spiriter and leader of the Alfard army, Verus has built up an impressive reputation and has upheld security and peace for the empire for decades. There is something behind his good looks and unassuming voice however, one of true evil and intelligence. With close ties to the forces of darkness and power, Verus has plans and ambitions for conquest and war. Playing everyone for a fool and having multiple pawns in place, Verus resides in the shadows until the right moment to show his true face to the world presents itself. '' War Criminal and The Maledieter Projects A self-proclaimed, legendary Spiriter, and great warrior in his youth, Verus had connections all over the Baten Kaitos Universe and his name alone may grant one an audience with a leader of any Nation. For whatever reason however, Verus was a highly unstable man with a lust for blood and power at any cost, though no one would know the truth for years as he was seen as a charming and polite man who went the extra mile to aid the other nations, especially Alfard. Originating from a wealthy background, Verus was one of the many priveleged citizens of Alfard and had the money and legacy to live a life of continious comfort. Despite this, Verus immersed himself in the political world of the empire to gain additional power and eventually participated in the old wars, eventually becoming injured and weakened. After the wars outcome, Verus was eerily in possession of weapons and crude devices of torture as well as haunting masks, greatly implying that Verus was not, at all, a noble solider and was instead a sadistic and murderous war criminal, who exploited the conflict and his injury to make himself appear as an admirable war hero. After the wars, Verus was bitter and believed he deserved more power than he received even though he already had massive amounts of wealth and power at his disposal. It simply wasn't enough though as the sadistic villain believed the empire truly belonged to him. This immense lust for power and feeling of entitlement attracted Wiseman, a vile sorcerer and villain who had been the instigator of the War of the Gods and has remained within the realm since, searching for somone to serve as his host. Verus seemed to be the perfect host for Wiseman; he was violent, manipulative, in a position of power and wealth, and was a natural at cruetly and sadisim, not much different at all from Wiseman himself. Verus accepted Wiseman into his heart to gain power, but this allowed Wiseman to use him as his puppet, slowly manipulating his actions for his own ends. Fifteen years prior to ''Baten Kaitos Origins, as he rested within his residence in Greater Mintaka, Verus had a beautiful woman named Gena as a maid who nursed him, with the pair eventually becoming romantically involved and making love, resulting in a son, named Sagi. Verus, who exploited Gena's feelings for him to begin with, quickly ordered his imperial operatives to seize his infant son and send him off, much to Gena's horror, to be part of the Maledieter project, a set of experiments that he helped initiate with Emperor Olgan for his plans and schemes for power. The experiments entailed binding pieces of Malpercio's leftover body parts, known as afterlings, to human beings and produce a man made spiriter. For Verus, this was the ideal way of creating beings of unbeiavable power to be used later on in his plans to conquer the nations. Test subjects from adults to new born infants were abducted and used in the experiments, which were horrendious, inhumane, torturous, and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent men, women, children, and infants. Among the test subjects used was Olgan's twelve year old son, Shanath, who was forced into the operation by Olgan, who wanted his son to be the perfect emperor, something he believed the experiments could yield as Spiriters are known to possess enough power to sway the world's future. Not everyone can just become a Spiriter though and Shanath was not a suitable candidate and his body rejected the afterling while still retaining some of it's power. The horrid pain Shanath endured at his father's hand caused Shanath to despise his father, seeing him as a power hungry tyrant who cared more for power than his own son. Olgan in turn grew to be disgusted with his son for not being strong enough to be a Maledieter, though he still loved his son deep down, and the two had a falling out that lasted for years and was never resolved. Lord Baelheit, one of the leaders in the experiments, soon succeeded in creating a Spiriter, but it was far too unstable. As a result, the subject destroyed the entire facility, killing many, including Baelheit's wife and destroyed half of his daughters body. Olgan then canceled the project, while Gena broke into the dungeons where the abducted test subject victims were held, rescued Sagi, and escaped the empire. Verus lost contact with his son after Gena escaped with the child and fled to Hassaleh though Verus only cared about the potential and power his son had, who was the only subject to become perfectly assimilated with Malpercio's afterling, and couldn't care less about him or Gena. Gena was heartbroken over Verus's horrid ambitions and deception, but vowed to never tell her son about his father or what happened to him in Alfard. Olgan would order for the rest of the Maledieters to be released to hush the events up, but kept a list of all the subjects for possible future purposes. Baelheit in the meantime fled, but found solitude in the guardian spirit, Daimon, whom gave him the wisdom to create machina, which he invented as soon as he returned to the empire and saved his daughter, Milly, by binding her body to it. While the experiments were cancelled, Verus still accomplished his goal of creating beings infused with the very energies of Malpercio itself. One day, these beings would serve his ultimate desires of power and prestige and get him a step closer to assuming complete control over the empire, the empire he believed rightfully belonged to him. Pro-Machination Over the course of fifteen years, Verus worked hard to build up an impressive reputation in order to give the people of Alfard a false sense of security and throw off any suspicions of his past and true nature; his efforts paid off beautifully and he was soon seen by many as a hero. As such, Emperor Olgan has placed his trust in Verus and appointed him as the commander of Alfard's Imperial army, a position of power Verus relished in comfort and luxury as he had a massive residence constructed for himself to symolize his great power and influence. While a seemingly noble and brave man to Alfard, Verus hid his true personality well, one of an extremely violent and sadistic man who was plotting to seize control of the empire and subjugate its people for his own plans in conquering the world. Even years after his war injury had healed, Verus continued to use a cane to fool people into believing he was still injured, allowing him to give orders and not embark on them himself, instead remaining in the comfort of his residence making his plans and overseeing his operations in comfort and relaxation. One of the rooms that was built in his residence, that was forbidden to all except himself, was a horrendous torture chamber that contained the countless devices of pain and torture he kept as souvenirs from his murderous exploits and crimes during the war. Verus often went here to relax, relive the violent moments he inflicted on others years ago during war, and tortured hundreds of abducted individuals in the room over the years as a way of enjoying himself and venting his sadism and cruelty to keep his calm composure when out in public. To further his image of nobility and heroism, Verus also lied to the citizens of Alfard by claiming he was a Spiriter, using it to gain respect and recognition, but truly held nothing but the personification of evil in the form of Wiseman. He would soon acquire an assistant known as Geldoblame who had so much respect for Verus that he may have fell in love with him. Verus knew of this eventually and used Geldoblame’s feelings for him to manipulate him as well as a viable assistant in his politcal affairs and go the extra mile to take care of any hinderances to his grand visions. Despite priding himself as being very in touch with other nations and concerning of their welfare, the reality was just another facade as sickening as the rest of Verus's violent and evil nature. In truth, he supported and collaborated with Olgan on some on his most vicious policies and treatments towards other populaces such as the slavery and labor conditions in Azha, resulting in numerous deaths, and the Hassaleh Servitude operation, where all able bodied men from Hassaleh were taken captive and forced to work endlessly, on constructing new imperial buildings, resulting in most of their deaths and numerous children being orphaned. As he built up Olgan's trust in him through these operations, Verus also befriended Shanath and preyed upon the boy's hatred and anger for his father and convinced him to assist him in his plans to conquer the empire, promising him great power and a taste of ultimate revenge against his father. Shanath agreed and with Verus's guidance throughout the years, Shanath's hatred for his father was amplified and he became a cruel and brutal man with a cold exterior with little room for empathy or remorse, making him the perfect pawn and assassin for Verus to manipulate for years on end. Through Shanath, Verus knew that he would be able to manipulate others into instigating events that would aid in his plans as Shanath held great power and influence throughout the empire, being the prince of Alfard. Shanath soon renounced his royalty and family connection to his father and became the personnel assistant of Lord Baelheit under Verus's orders and was put in command of The Dark Service, a secret organization of Baelheit's creation that took his orders without question no matter what the cost. Through Shanath, Verus was able to control the Dark Service and had his own orders and schemes fulfilled. With Shanath, Verus was also able to keep an eye on Baelheit’s activities and factor them in with his own. As Verus continued in his plans, he assisted Olgan and Baelheit in creating more machina, believing it to be the perfect way to conquer the other continents. Olgan soon desired to pro-machinate every continent to control them and ordered for the construction of an enormous flying fortress known as Tarazed, which would serve as a monument to machina and the new base for Alfard to rule from once all the other nations were firmly in their control through their machina. Verus assisted in this, but also made a stance of using the power of one's heart over machina, simply to cover his true ambitions to use the machina in his grand designs. As pro-machination efforts began to take root, Verus planned to use the technology to restructure the world and take control of the empire. In order to begin his plans, he had to first put an end to Emperor Olgan, both to vacate a spot for emperor and to force Baelheit to begin his plans and step up Pro-Machination efforts. Based off Shanath's reports, Verus soon learned that Baelheit was planning on capturing Malpericio's afterlings and transferring their power into mechanical weapons he developed called Machina Armor and also had plans to pro-machinate each continent and launch Tarazed to be his main base to rule and oversee all from. For Verus, this was perfect as it would allow Baelheit to do all the labor, at which point Verus would step in at the appropriate moment, murder Baelheit, and claim the fruits of his labor for himself to conquer the empire and the world. It was taking far too long though for Baelheit to complete his machina and Tarazed under Olgan's leadrship so Verus needed Olgan out of the way to compel Baelheit to work faster, as Baelheit would to need to please the citizens of Alfard with some form of accomplishment to keep them calm after the death of their leader, as well as to vacate the position of emperor to fill for himself. Verus also desired both the afterlings and to use Tarazed for his plans, but knew that he would need formidable power to capture the afterlings and stand up to pro-machination to ensure that Baelheit would have no choice but to finish and launch Tarazed, the true objective of Verus's manic desires. Shanath informed Verus that a young Spiriter known as Sagi was in the Dark Service and Verus immediately knew that this was his son, the Maledieter. He then found his perfect pawn to draw out the other afterlings and began to lay out his pawns and pieces to lure Sagi into his circle of manipulation and deceit. He learned that Baelheit had planned a fake assassination attempt on Olgan, simply as part of an elaborate operation to release the afterling in Sagi, and decided to use this confusion to actually have Olgan killed. Verus planned to pin Sagi for the assassination, putting him in the perfect position to persuade his former son to help him. He then ordered Shanath to personally kill the emperor during the operation, both to keep his promise of revenge to the boy and to ensure that the emperor indeed perishes. He also ordered Shanath to steal and bring him the list of Malpercio's afterlings that Olgan had kept as a record of the Maledieter Project so that they may begin collecting them while Baelheit works to secure the rest he has on his own separate list. The plan went perfectly as the emperor was murdered, Sagi was framed for it, and the list was stolen and secured in Verus's possession. Verus then sent Geldoblame to assist Sagi in escaping from the palace and invite him over to his residence. At the same time, Verus begins to set up his campaign for Emperor against Baelheit and hopes to win to initiate his plans head on and not from the shadows. Eventually Sagi, alongside Milly, Baelheit's daughter, and Guillo, a special para machina and Sagi's companion from his childhood and Dark Service days, meets Verus at his residence and agrees to help him in standing against pro-machination after Verus bribes him with empty promises of clearing his name and pledging aid to the orphanage in Hassaleh, filled with children he had a hand in making orphans to begin with. To further cover his tracks, Verus blamed Baelheit for Olagn's murder and Sagi's frame up, essentially using Baeheit as a scapegoat. Unknowingly, Sagi was drawing out afterlings for Verus and Shanath to capture and bind them to Tarazed to increase it's power and flying abilities. By Sagi destroying Machination efforts, he would force the launch of Tarazed, as it would be the only option left to conquer the continents when pro-machination fails. With Shanath as his double agent, Verus was able to both use him to carry out his own orders while appearing to serve Baelheit and keep an eye on his political rival for any useful information for his plans. Shanath did as he ordered and pretended to remain loyal to Baelheit, all the while leading pro-machination operations on each continent and drawing out several afterlings for Sagi to defeat so he may capture them. However, complications soon began to rise in Verus's plans as Sagi was proving to being too weak to destroy machina vanguards and began to suspect the true nature of the afterlings as leftover pieces of Malpercio's body, the portions that were not sealed within the End Magnus by the Children of the Earth. Verus continued to keep his calm composure in tack regardless of these drawbacks and even told Sagi the legend of the War of the Gods to uphold the Sagi's trust and quell his curiosity. While Sagi's efforts to stop promachination were dwindling, Shanath was still successful in capturing several afterlings and binding them to Tarazed's engines, making the flying fortress nearly complete and ready for launch. Verus still needed to stop Baelheit's plans of pro-machinating the continents so that the use of Tarazed would be inevitable and the last course of action available to conquer the continents for Baelheit. Verus still had high hopes that Sagi could prove he had the power Verus knew was lying dormant within his body and soul from the maledieter projects. Once it was activated and Sagi's true potential was shown, the foundations of Verus's ultimate plans and objectives would finally be his to grasp and choke the life out of the world. The Monster inside the Man Verus's operations continued to progress smoothly except for Verus's election campaign to become the next emperor of Alfard as he was no match against Baelheit, who was seen as a hero and capable leader for capturing the afterlings and leading pro-machination efforts. Verus then came up with a horrid plan to draw out the afterling in Sagi in front of Baelheit to slander his good name. To accomplish this, he has Gena, his former lover and Sagi's mother, abducted and her wings pulled out in front of Sagi at the Alfard Square during Baelheit's election speech by Shanath. This was accomplished by Shanath under Verus's orders, but was seen as a publicity stunt to the public eye under Baelheit's orders. This was not the case though, as Shanath merely convinced Baelheit to allow it, thinking it would serve his campaign against people having Wings of the Heart. When Sagi saw this, he was overcome with so much anger and hatred that he turned into an afterling, but was subdued. Even after all this, Baelheit still won the election and was made the new Emperor while Sagi was bounded to Tarazed in one of the engine rooms. Sagi was able to ultimately escape by reconciling with his Spirit, actually a piece of Malpercio, and escaped using it's power, finally utilizing the very energies that Verus had wanted from Sagi from the very beginning. Shanath was patrolling the corridors and this point in time and was given specific orders by Verus not to kill Sagi as he was still essential to his plans. Shanath, however had his own agenda of killing all the afterlings to prove that he is stronger than his hated father could've ever dreamed of and engaged Sagi in battle with his machine. Sagi was able to defeat the young man through his greatly increased strength and Shanath's injuries cost him his life, leaving his daughter, Savyna, an orphan and Verus without his personal assassin. Nonetheless, Sagi finally succeeded in destroying pro-machination efforts, forcing Baelheit to launch Tarazed; all that remained was for Sagi to kill Baelheit, allowing Verus to take control of the fortress and conquer the world, reshaping it in his image. To this final end in his plans, Verus sent Sagi, Guillo, and Milly to infiltrate Tarazed and defeat Baelheit, secretly following the trio to be ready for his ultimate moment. When Sagi finally managed to defeat Baelheit, Verus arrived on the fortress with Geldoblame and brutally murdered Baelheit by stabbing him through the heart. He revealed through this betrayal that he had played everyone for a fool and had used Geldoblame and Sagi to achieve dominance. In the case of Geldoblame, who had respected and looked up to Verus his whole life, this was heartbreaking. Now revealed as the main villain, Verus revealed his intent to use the afterlings and machina to obtain absolute power and desired to destroy everything and rebuild it as his own. As Verus took control of Tarazed, he prepares for an all scale attack on all the nations of the world, planning to slaughter the entire Alfard senate for refusing to elect him and all the people who opposed him. Going down to the bowels of the fortress, Verus programs all of the Machina and prepares for them to invade the continents. Sagi, Milly, and Guillo follow him, each fueled by personnel tragedies and betrayals he put them through, and engage him in a fight to the death. Verus and his machina are soon defeated and while Verus tries to call the Machina to help him, they turn on him and brutally attack him again and again until every shred of life leaves his body. After being defeated, Wiseman reveals himself and, using the immense hatred and vengeance in Verus's heart to resurface in true form, consumes Verus's heart of taint and power hunger and forms an amalgamation of the two. Wiseman then transports the trio into an inter-dimensional rift and reveals his intentions to devour their hearts and then force the rest of the world to join with him and become it's all powerful ruler for eternity. He soon attacks the trio and engages in a brutal showdown, which goes in his favor until the five sibling gods of Malpercio temporarily escape from their tortured imprisonments to help. With the encouragement of the five brave warriors and gods of Malpercio, Sagi, Milly, and Guillo all recover and relentlessly attack Wiseman. After an intense fight, Wiseman is finally destroyed, taking Verus’s body with him and leaving nothing but the villain’s old cane behind. His defeat caused a chain reaction that destroyed all of Tarazed, which soon crashed, while Sagi and Milly escaped to live together as a married couple. With this, Verus's plans and horrid ambitions came to an end, but the ramifications of his actions would impact the future of the world for decades to come. His betrayal against Geldoblame caused the once noble man to break into insanity and turn into a tyrant of unimaginable evil. This would lead to another campaign of violence and reign of terror, while the energies of Wiseman may have very well survived and influenced Geldoblame's actions in some shape or form as he had done so with Verus. Personality A man of true evil and sadism, a filthy and bloodthirsty war criminal, and a skilled manipulator, Verus did well to cover his true face with a mask of sanity, enticing others to believe that he was an honest man and was working hard to uphold security and peace for the Alrad Empire. His true face though was one of vile evil that was on the border of insanity as Verus sought to subjugate the people of Alfard for his plans and take control of the world. To this end, Verus had many plans, operations, and pawns set in place over the years as he plotted to take control of the Empire and restructure the entire world as it's new leader. Already in a position of great wealth and power, Verus manipulated numerous people such as Emperor Olgan, Shanath, Baelheit, Sagi, Milly, Guillo, and even Geldoblame by preying on his immense trust and loyalty to him. In one way or another all of these individuals were manipulated by Verus for his own ends, preying upon their emotions, weaknesses, and their own lusts to benefit his plans and operations. This shows that Verus had a great amount of intelligence, strategy, and patience, as well as a keen understanding of how to manipulate others by using their own personnel feelings and values. He knows all too well how people how people fuction under the emotions of love and attachment and knows how to easily twist and turn them to turn people into unkowing pawns on his board. He preyed upon the anger and lust for vengeance Shanath had to enlist him in his plans and use him as a personnel assassin and double agent, manipulated Olgan's power hunger to orchestrate the maledieter projects to create beings of power for his plans, and used Baelheit as a scapegoat for his own actions in order to manipulate Sagi to aid him. Even Sagi's mother, Gena, was seduced by Verus's false charms and made love to him to create a son, a course of action Verus had wanted so that he could use his own son as an experiment in the maledieter projects. Geldoblame himself was used by Verus, who deduced Geldoblame's immense loyalty to him, and used him to recruit others and aid in his political affairs. Another consistent trait in Verus is his complete disdain for others once they have served their purposes in his plans. He ordered Shanath to kill Olgan as he could no longer benefit him and his death would jump-start the next phase of his plans, murdered Baelheit in cold blood once he no longer had a purpose, had Gena abducted and tortured in front of Alfard simply to act as publicity stunt to smear Baelheit's name, shunned Geldoblame, his most loyal servant, once he no longer had a purpose in his political affairs, and planned to wipe out Sagi, Guillo, and Milly, once they helped him overthrow Baelheit. This shows Verus as a two-faced back stabber who has no qualms over murdering others, even if they had served him and looked up to him as a trusted adviser. Perhaps the biggest indicator of Verus's sadistic nature is one that is very easily missed as it is only accessible if the player goes back to his residence after defeating Baelheit. Within a particular room, that was always guarded in Verus's residence until Verus left for Tarazed, was a horrid torture chamber that contained horrendous devices, crude masks, and weapons of war. It has been stated that Verus often goes here to communicate with his spirit, but in reality, he is simply torturing countless people as a way of venting and enjoying himself. Due to the structure of the room, it is impossible for anyone to hear anything that occurs in it and, since Verus is only allowed in, no one would ever learn the truth. His immense cunning and brutal nature, as well as his ingenious plans to conquer the world, attracted the vile energies of Wiseman who had his own plans for the future. With Wiseman guiding him, Verus became a true threat to all of the world and was more than formidable in battle. In the end, he would learn the hard way that not everything can be controlled and was killed by the very machina he was hoping to use to wipe out the entire world. His body was later devoured by Wiseman, who, ironically, was manipulating Verus himself and was feeding off his anger and lust for vengeance to resurface and begin his own plans to conquer the universe. Ultimately, Verus was a man of pure evil who saw others as pawns in a game, but failed to realize that he himself was the biggest pawn to one of the greatest evils ever to walk the planet. Videos thumb|300px|right|Verus meets his end at the hands of Sagi. Category:Characters Category:Villains Category:Bosses Category:Videos Category:Allies